Getting a lot of questions regarding my criticism of Daniel Craig's clothes. Common questions: "How can you dress if you're muscular?" "Should no one wear skinny suits?" "What about a more modern silhouette?" Let's talk about some of these points. 🧵
Craig often wears clothes that are too tight for his body. This causes the buttoning point to strain across his waist, the lapels to buckle away from the chest, and the coat's collar to lift off his neck.
His right sleeve is often two inches too short. I suspect this is because his bicep is too tight and he is right-handed. When he waves or shakes people's hands, his tight sleeve is prone to riding up on him, leaving him with too much shirt cuff. Happens often at press events.
A good sleeve should hang well, which is to say it should be relatively free from wrinkles. This comes from two things: 1) enough room for the arm inside and 2) sleeve should be pitched correctly for the arm (not too forward or back, relative to how the wearer naturally stands)
It's very much possible to get clothes made for a muscular build that's both flattering and comfortable. These garments don't pucker or pull. (Lebron's trousers bunch at the bottom bc they were tailored for dress shoes and he's wearing sneakers here, but it's otherwise good.)
These clothes will be more comfortable and allow movement. When you feel more comfortable, you will be more stylish. You will also look more at ease, so the clothes will look natural on you. You will be able to hug people without feeling like the center back seam is going to rip.
It's not that skinny suits can't be worn. It's that the cut has to work for your body. Notice Dior and Saint Laurent ads always feature a very slim model. Clothes hang right. By contrast, Craig looks like he had to squeeze into his suit. The effect is more "sausage casing."
Hedi Slimane, who helped kick off the trend for skin tight suits in the late 1990s/ early 2000s, was once the Creative Director of Saint Laurent Paris. And Yves Saint Laurent himself wore very slim suits on occasion. His body was built for it.
As for how you can modernize the suit, there are lots of ways: material, color, silhouette, or styling. Impossible to cover everything here, but the principles for good tailoring still apply to pics below: collar hugs neck, clean lines, no pulling, etc.
Will leave you with one more example. Both men are about the same height and have muscular builds. Craig emphasizes his build by slimming the suit until it looks like he bought the wrong size. The second still has a flattering build (V-shaped silhouette), but has clean lines
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In 1999, a group of Haitians were tired of political disorder and dreamed of a better life in the United States. So they built a small, 23-foot boat by hand using pine trees, scrap wood, and used nails. They called the boat "Believe in God." 🧵
In a boat powered by nothing but a sail, they somehow made it from Tortuga Island to the Bahamas (about a 90 mile distance). Then from the Bahamas, they set sail again. But a few days and some hundred miles later, their makeshift boat began to sink.
The men on the boat were so dehydrated this point, one slipped in and out of consciousness, unable to stand. They were all resigned to their death.
Luckily, they were rescued at the last minute by the US Coast Guard.
After this post went viral, I called Caroline Groves, a world-class bespoke shoemaker, to discuss how women's shoes are made. I normally don't talk about womenswear, but I found the information interesting, so I thought I would share what I learned here. 🧵
Footwear is broadly broken into two categories: bespoke and ready-to-wear. In London, bespoke makers, including those for women, are largely focused on traditional styles, such as wingtip derbies and loafers. Emiko Matsuda is great for this.
In Paris, there's Massaro, a historic firm that has been operating since 1894, now owned by Chanel. Their designs are less about creating the women's equivalent of traditional men's footwear and more about things such as heels or creative styles. Aesthetic is still "traditional."
Earlier today, Roger Stone announced his partnership with a menswear company, where together they've released a collection of tailored clothing items.
Here is my review of those pieces. 🧵
The line is mostly comprised of suits and sport coats, supplemented with dress shirts and one pair of odd trousers (tailor-speak for a pair of pants made without a matching jacket). Suits start at $1,540; sport coats are $1,150. One suit is $5,400 bc it's made from Scabal fabric
Let's start with the good points. These are fully canvassed jackets, meaning a free floating canvas has been tacked onto the face fabric to give it some weight and structure. This is better than a half-canvas and fully fused construction, but requires more time and labor.
Here is a guide breaking down what goes into quality men's footwear. This is focused on men's shoes, as women's shoes, depending on the style, will have different construction techniques and thus standards. 🧵
First, let's set a standard. What does it mean for a pair of shoes to be "good quality?" In this thread, I define that standard to be two things:
— Do the shoes age well?
— Can they be easily repaired?
In short, you should want and be able to wear the shoes for a long time.
We'll start with the part most people see: the uppers.
Quality uppers are made from full grain leather, which shows the natural grain of the hide (pic 1). Low quality uppers will be made from corrected grain, where bad leather has been sanded and given a chemical coating (pic 2)
When I was on a menswear forum, one of my most controversial opinions was that certain coats look better when they're worn open, while others look better when they're closed.
For instance, which of these two outfits look better to you? 🧵
If you shop for an overcoat today, there's a good chance you'll land on a single breasted. As suits and sport coats have receded from daily life, the types of outerwear that men historically wore with them have also slowly disappeared.
If you look at the past, men had all sorts of designs to wear over their tailored clothing: polos, Ulsters, Balmacaans, Chesterfields, paletots, wrap coats, etc. They were offered in a wider range of materials: gabardine, camelhair, covert, heavy tweeds, etc.
The reason why this looks off is bc the coat is built from many layers of material — haircloth, canvas, and padding — which sits on top of another jacket with similar structure. This can make you look a bit like a linebacker. If you find this to be the case, switch to a raglan 🧵
A raglan is defined by its sleeve construction. Most coats have a set-in sleeve, which is to say the sleeve attached to a vertical armhole, much like a shirt. A raglan, by contrast, has a diagonal seam running from the neck to armpit. Historically, this was put on raincoats.
A raglan construction is a bit more waterproof that its set-in sleeve counterpart because there's not vertical seam in which water can sit and eventually penetrate. But most importantly, it's completely devoid of padding. This results in a softer, rounder shoulder line. Compare: